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Oct. 9, 2006

United Methodist and World Council of Churches leaders are responding with concern to the news of a nuclear weapon test by North Korea.

"Many United Methodist Christians are concerned about North Korea's nuclear test," said Bishop Hee-Soo Jung, who leads the United Methodist Church's Chicago Area. The church opposes any country testing or developing nuclear arms, "which can be misused and destroy all of God's creation," he said Oct. 9, in a Korean-language interview with United Methodist Communications.

North Korea announced that it had carried out an underground test of a nuclear weapon Oct. 8.

Commenting on the implications for peace and reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula, Jung said the test was "very serious."

"However," he added, "we can't build a peaceful relationship when we label the other as evil. I ask United Methodists and other Christians to pray for peaceful resolutions and advances in the Korean Peninsula through ? dialogue and diplomatic channels. Let us pray for peace in Korea and (for) her people as well as leaders in related countries in this difficult situation."  

'Act of aggression'

The Rev. R. Randy Day, chief executive of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, condemned the nuclear test in a statement Oct. 9, on the opening day of his agency's annual board of directors meeting in Stamford, Conn.

"It is a deplorable act of aggression against the prospects of a more peaceful world," Day said.

He called upon all nations with nuclear capacity to eliminate nuclear weapons. North Korea, he said, is not the only country that holds the threat of nuclear holocaust over the heads of the world's people.

Nuclear weapons are a menace to all forms of life and to Earth itself, and the world's nuclear arsenals must be eliminated, Day said. He noted that North Korea "is not alone in holding the threat of nuclear holocaust over the heads of the world's people."

Longstanding opposition

The United Methodist Church has a long history of opposition to nuclear weapons and their testing, Day said. The use or threat of such weapons were called "evil and morally wrong" by the church's top legislative assembly, the General Conference, in 2000.

In its Book of Resolutions, the United Methodist Church emphasizes its support for initiatives that move toward the goal of disarmament. "In particular, we support the abolition of nuclear weapons," the denomination states in a resolution titled, "The United Methodist Church and Peace."

The church also affirms its support of the United Methodist Council of Bishops' statement, "In Defense of Creation": "We say a clear and unconditional 'NO' to nuclear war and to any use of nuclear weapons." The denomination supports the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and it is committed to a nuclear-free Pacific. In the resolution, it calls for the end of all testing, use, or stockpiling of nuclear weapons.

Day noted that the Board of Global Ministries has sent food supplies to North Korea and values its links with the Christian Federation in North Korea.

"We are prayerfully concerned for the people of both South and North Korea. We think especially of our friends in the Korean Methodist Church, and join with them in prayer for peace and stability, and eventual unification, in their land," Day said. "We hold our Korean brothers and sisters in our hearts at this time of crisis and extend to them the love that defines the God of peace and hope."

The United Methodist Board of Discipleship has posted a litany, "A Call to Prayer With the President of the United States and Leaders of the World," for congregations. It is available at http://www.gbod.org/worship/default.asp?act=reader&item_id=20495

Negotiations needed

The Rev. Samuel Kobia, a Methodist and the chief executive of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, sent a letter to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and to the U.N. ambassadors of North Korea and its neighbors, South Korea and Japan. He asked that the crisis be resolved through negotiations as well as through a strengthening of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"In the East Asia region, today's event puts new urgency into a successful outcome from the Six Party Talks," Kobia said. "North Korean nuclear testing must not be allowed to cause a chain reaction involving Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and possibly others such as Indonesia and Australia."

"We call on each of your governments to ensure that the nuclear weapons crisis in northeast Asia is resolved politically, through the negotiated settlement of grievances among the parties concerned, and that it is resolved legally, by a determined and general movement of states into the spirit and the letter of the NPT and related treaties under the auspices of the United Nations." 

News media contact: Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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World Council of Churches

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